Epidemic
by KNewer
Summary: Hydra keeps slipping through their fingers. They always seem to be a step ahead of them and what's left of SHIELD and the Avengers fight to keep pace as the growing number of dead college students climb. All seems lost, until a strand of the serum Hydra tested results in success for one of those students. Third Genre: Romance.
1. Chapter 1

_(A/N: This follows through S1 of Agents of SHIELD and the latest Captain America movie. Also just throwing this up to see how well this idea is received and how much of a response I get to it._

_Edit: fixed some errors.)_

_Prologue_

He sighed at the singing, madly vibrating phone in his palm in slight frustration, because somehow, Tony had re-programmed his own ringtone to _Ironman_. And the kicker? He couldn't remember a time where would Tony have ever had access to his cell.

He glanced around his surroundings before he reluctantly answered, a slight frown marring his face, "Stark."

"We need you to come in."

"What, no quips about me knowing how to answer the phone, Tony?" He joked lightly, startled by the other man's tone.

There was silence from Stark, but Steve could hear the man working, tools clattering and Jarvis murmuring in the background. Tony took a breath, "No time, you need to get to the states. Hydra's been playing while you've been away."

Steve's head whipped around his surroundings, ensuring he was alone before dropping his voice to just above a whisper, "What do you mean. The Hydra bases in the states were destroyed."

There was another bout of clanking and soft cursing on the other end of the line, "Not now, not over the phone. Get home. Now."

Stark cut the line as Steve's mouth opened to ask another question. He stared at the small cell for a moment lost in thought. It lit up, screen bright and he touched it to open the message;

_Get to the airport. Jet waiting for you._

Steve resisted the urge to roll his eyes because it was so typically Tony, and instead, clumsily typed out a thanks in response.

/

He wasn't expecting anyone to be waiting on him as he touched down in New York, but there was a young man, silent and efficient, that held a hand up at him to wave him over to the shiny black SUV that was anything but inconspicuous.

He said nothing as Steve closed the door or as he shifted the vehicle into drive or after he merged into traffic. The only time he acknowledge the Captain was when he pulled in front of Stark Tower and turned to give him a nod, unlocking the door as the Captain reached for the door handle.

And Steve had a hunch that the silent man used to work for SHIELD. It was actually very likely seeing as Tony had absorbed as many of the defunct organization, the non-hail-hydra portion mind, as he could.

He stood on the sidewalk and stretched, craning his neck up and gazed up the tower, which ironically still only had the _A_ on it. It made him feel conflicted.

Because Tony had made his offers to them all, trying to get them to move in and he had made a quite moving speech to Steve, explaining_ why_ it was such a great idea to have them all under one roof.

He hadn't seen the tactical error that Steve had though.

All of them in one place? Please, might as well gift wrap them and deliver them to the front porch of their enemies, and he had told Tony as much. Whereas Stark had just shrugged off his very valid concerns and proceeded to launch into more counters to his hang-ups.

Even with his doubts, every once in a while he became… wistful he supposed. Because it would be incredibly nice to actually be able to talk to someone and not face being alone in his silent apartment – the record player could only alleviate so much of the oppressive quiet.

Steve shook his head, because the offer was off the table because he stood by what he told Tony. He rolled his shoulders as he approached the gleaming glass doors and waited as he pressed the buzzer right below the sleek round speaker and video screen.

Tony's face flickered across the tiny display and Steve tried to hide the surprise upon seeing the haggard face of the usually too bright and overly sarcastic – the armor he had developed before the more literal version Steve was sure – genius.

Stark glanced at him once before his tired eyes dropped back to whatever he was doing, "Sixty-seventh floor, Cap. Move it."

Steve inwardly cringed at the strain in Starks's voice. He'd obviously been working on whatever crisis they were in at the expense of much needed sleep. The image of Tony winked out of existence and the sharp sound of bolts unlocking had Steve's attention drawn back towards the large glass doors just as they swung inward to admit him. He strode in and was greeted by Jarvis, "Welcome, Captain."

"Thanks," he replied distractedly as he eyed the lobby of the tower, looking for the elevators.

"To your left, Sir."

He smiled up at the ceiling, not quite sure if the AI could actually see him, and strode toward the one hallway on the left wall, "Thanks again, Jarvis."

"My pleasure, Sir."

The elevator ride up was smooth and quiet, the stop almost unnoticeable and a little disorienting for him. The door opened quietly and he was immediately accosted by Natasha.

He was surprised to see her and it most have shown on his face because she arched one of those stunning brows, "This was more important than me going out and reinventing myself."

Her fingers were clamped tight around his bicep and drug him from the elevator and down the hallway. As he took in his surroundings he asked, "What's going on?"

"A lot. We've just been waiting on you to arrive to so we could debrief the rest of the team," she answered.

"Team?"

She slowed a little and looked at him, and if he hadn't just spent a good amount of time with her he would have been a little put off by the blank expression she (admittedly, always) wore. She explained, "The Avengers. Just because SHIELD is gone doesn't mean we are."

A little dumbfounded, he simply nodded because he didn't realize that the Avengers were a thing still, especially without SHIELD – seeing as they hadn't worked together since New York and had been working independently, Tony with the AIM and the Mandarin (and _god,_ Steve was sick with worry and guild after hearing about the attack and that Tony was supposedly dead) and then he couldn't think or even worry about that because Steve was suddenly SHIELDS most wanted and neck deep in the whole _hydra's-in-shield-and-you're best-friend-you-thought-was-dead-was-really-just-brainwashed-and-turned-into-a-super-biomechanical-assassin-by-the-very-people-who-indirectly-killed-him-and-had-tried-to-kill-you_.

He sighed heavily though his nose and Natasha ignored him in favor of continuing her imagined power over him; i.e. dragging him, like he had no choice, through a door at the end of the hall. Of course, this was after a hand and eye scan done so quickly that it had Steve marveling at how things were _still _evolving at such a frightening pace around him.

Hell, he'd barely learned his current cellphone and there was already a new and more infuriatingly advanced one out. He was sure Tony had something to do with it, because anything that made Steve feel like an idiot made Stark infinitely happier.

Thoughts of diabolical millionaires fueling the technology scene in order to keep Steve's head spinning and threatening to implode stopped as Natasha let his arm go. He stood, mouth parted and eyes wide, taking in the manic activity going on around him.

There were hubs of computer stations along the side of the walls. In the middle of the room there were two huge work tables with holograms projecting upwards and people in the midst of discussion, hands working the images over, stretching, rotating and deleting things from them.

It wasn't any of that that caught his attention because that was part of who Steve was; automatic sweeps and assessments of rooms without thought. No, what held his attention was the man standing next to Stark.

He looked older – paler than he remembered. Which really wasn't the fucking point because he wasn't supposed to be there, standing in the middle of this mess of activity.

He strode up to them, piercing blue eyes never leaving the man because he was sure he was a ghost and he would vanish as soon as his eyes left him.

"Nice of you to join us, Captain," Stark added in passing as he turned toward the hologram behind him. Steve's eyes reluctantly left the ghost, because he was sure that's what he was, and wasn't quite sure what he was looking at now; DNA maybe?

He turned his attention back on the man again, "You died."

"I hear that a lot," he agreed, his enigmatic smile, something Steve hadn't realized he had missed, present, "I apologize for not being in touch sooner."

Steve's lips twitched into an almost smile but only because they were already thinned in anger towards Fury because he had led them to believe, and had obviously felt no need to inform them otherwise, that he was dead, "It's nice to see you again, Coulson."

"Likewise, I assure you," he replied softly, small smile causing those familiar crinkles around those eyes that forever held admiration for Steve.

"Care to tell me what's going on?" Steve asked, again hoping for _some_ kind of information, while looking around and taking in the new faces, "Who are all these people?"

Coulson's eyes trailed after Steve's, "The debriefing will be soon," and the Captain had to call upon the patience he was supposedly known for because, _dammit,_ how much longer was it going to be before he was told what the fuck was going on? Coulson turned back to Steve, "As for the new faces, most were agents from SHIELD. Stark caught them after the fallout, they're _clean_. Tony is frighteningly thorough with background checks," he stressed before clearing his throat and adding, "Five of them are part my team."

Steve's brow quirked, because when had _that_ happened? Coulson was _theirs_, "Your team?"

"Yes," he replied succinctly, "May," he nodded towards a petite, black headed woman, "is our navigator and saves our asses when we get in too deep. Fitz and Simmons," he pointed towards two young people, a man sitting and heavily leaning against the work table, arm in a cast and the woman animatedly pointing toward a strand of DNA, "Are both brilliant in their respective fields."

Steve watched them for a moment and though he wasn't an expert in the area, he easily picked up on the underlying chemistry buzzing between them. Of course, it could have been the sappy moon eyes they kept giving each other.

"Then there's Skye," and Steve's attention was turned back towards Stark because that's where Skye, long, lush hair and bright, familiar – because Tony's looked like that when he was thinking about science – eyes, was. They seemed to be having a heated discussion, pointing at strings of code on the holographic screen in front of them. Coulson sounded a bit smug, Steve thought, when he said, "I'm quite positive when I say that she rivals Stark in hacking, if not computers in general."

Steve highly doubted that.

"And Triplett," Coulson smiled sadly, an emotion that Steve assumed didn't directly involve the man he was talking about, "He's the grandson of a Howling Commando you know," Steve's mouth dried up and his stomach fell somewhere below his feet because there, over in the corner was a man that was related, distantly, to his past, "Helped us immensely while we were dealing with and uncovering Hydra."

Steve's eyes flashed in recognition as nostalgia threatened to take him under, "He looks like Gabe."

Coulson nodded, "Just as good too."

Steve wanted to ask, _how would you know? _But he bit his tongue.

Bruce came up behind Steve, a nod and smile directed at the Captain, and clapped his shoulder, before looking at Coulson, "Let's get this show on the road. Thor and Barton can only sit still for so long before they need to," Bruce struggled for a moment before coming to the conclusion that there wasn't another word to accurately describe the horror that was a bored Hawkeye and Thor, "destroy something."

Coulson nodded and threw a furtive glance towards the demi-god and assassin before he looked up and cleared his throat. To Steve's absolute amazement, because even drill-sergeants couldn't do that without screaming themselves hoarse, everyone quieted, "As you all know, Hydra hasn't ran with the tail tucked like we thought they would," he motioned at Tony and he pulled up a couple hundred headlines, plucked from newspapers. Steve could do nothing but stare at them in horror, "We've been trying to find a pattern."

"There isn't one, it's random," Tony interjected, fingers flying across the work table while he simultaneously swatted at Skye's hands, that kept creeping over towards where he was working, "The only thing they have in common is the fact that they're using Colleges."

Coulson merely stared at Tony in that quietly intimidating way he somehow managed to pull off, because Phil Coulson was as intimidating as a puppy in Steve's opinion, "You done?"

Stark made a rude gesture, swatted at Skye again, and went back to his work.

Coulson cleared his throat again, "As I was saying, it seems that this particular division of Hydra is testing serums on college students. It's sporadic and they're quick, they don't stay long. They go under the guise of free clinic, much like the Red Cross, giving vaccines. They genuinely vaccinate a number of them while giving the rest a dose of whatever serum they've got on hand."

And Steve's stomach left him again. Why were people _still_ trying to recreate the super soldier program? After seeing what had happened with Schmidt and Banner… and no telling how many countless others, Steve just couldn't understand it.

"It's near instant death for those that get the Hydra engineered serum," he added gravely, and Steve's insides clenched, "It's not Extremis, nor part of the Centipede serum," he looked at Tony briefly, "It seems that we've compromised those particular programs for Hydra, thankfully, but from what we've gathered in the autopsies, each batch of students have a different formula in their systems. It's likely they tweak it between each test round they do."

Coulson looked at Steve and the words that followed made his insides freeze, "It's the purest form that we've ever seen of Erskine's original formula. They're getting too close."

Simmons' cleared her throat and smiled nervously, "As you can see here," she began, her fingers working through the DNA hologram. She enlarged a portion and tapped it, sending the rest of the strand into the background, "They haven't found a way to bond it yet, not properly. That's what's killing everyone they inject it with," she turned a grave face towards Coulson, "It's only a matter of time."

"You see, Cap," Tony began and Steve dreaded what he was going to say, "Not much was written down about the procedure you went through and daddy dearest wasn't all that chatty about it, either."

The pointed look Tony was giving him made Steve want to punch something, because he expected him to recall something that happened while he was jittering with nerves and terror, "I assume you want to know what I remember?"

"That's the idea," Stark replied dryly, finger's poised over his work station.

So Steve scrounged around in his brain for slips of information and closed his eyes to try to visualize the room while omitting the people because thinking about them and how they were _gone_ made his chest ache. He began spewing information, disjointed from the terror that had seeped into his psyche prior to the experiment; because that's what it had been even with Erskine's assurance otherwise, there hadn't been any guarantee it would work, only that it would be _painful_. And it was, and he made sure that they knew it had been. Bones and muscles grown and stretched within minutes, it had been absolute agony.

The room bustled to life after he finished and he slumped against a work table unable to tear his eyes from the screen because there were thousands dead. At least one college in each state had been hit within the last month.

All because of him.

At that moment Steve couldn't help but feel the overwhelming guilt of being Erskine's one and only success. And not for the first time, he wished with all his heart that he hadn't made it through the procedure and that he wasn't the living proof that some random mix of chemicals could work.

Maybe then people wouldn't be killing innocents in hopes of remaking the serum that made him.

/


	2. Chapter 2

_Chapter 1_

_3 Days Earlier…_

"Did you hear about SHIELD?"

Jen, or Creep as she was more commonly known due to her ridiculously long body and low BMI, was rambling on and on about what had happened in New York - yes alien invasions are terribly terrifying and exciting; what happened to Iron Man - no he wasn't dead, thankfully, and a terrorist group was now gone; what happened to SHIELD - yes, it was heartbreaking, really, that a super-secret agency was gone and marred forever by the evil that sprung from it; Captain America - god, how could anyone think this man was anything but righteous was beyond her; and everything else – read, the shit that happened in Britain with Thor – related to the superhuman group known as the Avengers.

You could say she was a bit obsessed with the outside wonders and glamor of the big city. Kinda helped there were superhot superheroes there. According to her, at least.

Bryn sighed and readjusted the shoulder strap of her bag, kicking a lone and out of place rock from the sidewalk, "Yes, Creep, I've heard. You haven't let me un-hear it for the past three months."

Jen scowled and swatted at Bryn, "You know you enjoy talking about it."

Bryn rolled her eyes, because Jen knew she enjoyed talking about the happenings, specifically loved debating the rights and wrongs – i.e. city officials railing the Avengers and placing blame on them as soon as the Chitauri Invasion was over – but since the emergence of hydra in SHIELD, it was all Jen could talk about and Bryn was talked out. She leveled a glare at Creep, "You just wish something exciting would happen here. I don't appreciate you wishing evil on us."

Creep stuck her tongue out at her friend and completely ignored the last part of Bryn's statement, "There's plenty of exciting things going on 'round here. Sigma Tau Delta is holding a blood drive."

An involuntary shiver raced up Bryn's spine and she moaned, "Don't remind me. Every time I'm in the library the STD crew is there, waiting in the bowels of the building, pouncing on everyone that walks by to the archives. I haven't left without being accosted."

"Well," she drawled and gave Bryn a look that was anything but sympathetic, "if you would just agree to it maybe they'd leave you alone."

"You know I don't do needles."

Jen rolled her eyes in long suffered annoyance, "Fine, there's always the less exciting things the student government sets up. Like the free flu shot station in the Student Center."

Bryn eyed her warily and slowed her pace, because Creep had conspicuously herded her toward said building, "Needles, remember?"

Jen craned her neck to look over her bony shoulder and gave Bryn her customary death glare that packed enough heat to cook the frozen hot pockets, trapped forever in their icy death beds, in the freezer, "You remember when you got sick last winter and you _promised_ me that you would get vaccinated this year?"

Bryn wheeled backwards, blue eyes bright and scanning for escape routes, because she certainly_ did_ remember that and that didn't bode well for her, _at all_, "I was delusional and didn't know what I was promising."

Creep pivoted on her heel faster than Bryn ever thought possible and grabbed at her, hauling Bryn forward, "No take backs, I refuse to clean up your non-alcohol induced vomit ever again. 'Sides, I've already signed you up," and one of those thin, Maleficent-like brows arched up, daring Bryn to argue, "We're going now."

Bryn stopped, risking life and limb (i.e. the arm Creep had in a death grip), ridged and slack-jawed, "You can't do that! You know I don't do spur of the moment things! I need time to – to," she threw her hands up and groaned because she had explained this one too many times to be able to put up a fight again. She needed time to acclimate, time to steel her nerves and work up to having someone stab her with pointy things. It's how she worked, no matter how utterly ridiculous it was, dammit!

"Stop being a baby," Creep moaned with a dramatic eye roll and foot stomp before tugging on Bryn's arm again with her harpy talons, "It's a small poke in the arm and it's done."

Bryn wished something would fall from the sky and squish her. Her eyes narrowed to slits, "Just so you know, the next time a spider is crawling over your bed I'm just going to sit back and cackle while you do your freak out dance and screech at me to kill it."

Creep swallowed hard, squared her shoulders and marched onwards with jellied legs, _totally_ unaffected.

/

Bryn read over the form again, not quite understanding why they needed to know what she was majoring in, or where she was born, or if she liked tacos, or if she considered herself to be an introverted or outgoing person.

The fuck was all this?

She flipped through two more pages of highly personal and random questions. Surely this wasn't for the flu shot?

"Creep, what is all this?"

Jen was dutifully answering all the questions, hand scrawling and looping, nearly upside down due to her left handedness. She stopped, pressing the eraser end into her thick bottom lip as she contemplated a question, "Student Government, I'm sure. Do you think I'm more boyish or girlish?"

Bryn quirked a brow, "You're 110% weird, you painted your dog's nails, stuck her in a tutu and put a wig on her." She turned back to her questionnaire, ignoring the muffled sound of indignant murmurs coming from her right, "This is ridiculous, why would they want to know if you _'tend procrastinate'_ or if you_ 'eat toast buttered or not'_?"

Creep slumped down in the chair, eyes never leaving her questionnaire, and stretched her long bony legs out, "Probably taking a poll, chill out Bryn."

"It's stupid and I'm not doing it," because Bryn was _totally _mature.

Jen huffed and yanked the clipboard from Bryn's hands, "Fine, I'll do it for you."

A few minutes later and couple more after Creep shoved Bryn's now complete form back into her lap, a squat woman, dressed in offensively bright scrubs, stepped halfway out of the door to conference room they had set up in and called, "Ms. McMaster's."

Jen's head popped up and stood, glaring balefully at Bryn, "Hope it hurts, you ninny."

"Hope you get hives on your ass."

Creep snorted and kicked Bryn's foot, "See ya in Dr. Tucker's class."

"See ya," Bryn smiled at her retreating back and looked back down at her clipboard, the questionnaire filled out in Creep's loopy scrawl. She sighed and began doodling in the margins.

It was thirty minutes later when the door reopened and the squat nurse called, "Ms. Pendergrass."

Bryn stood and willed away the flopping nausea in her gut. When she stepped inside the door the nurse plucked the clipboard out of her hand and began flipping through it, "Interesting answers."

Bryn's brow scrunched together, "What?"

The nurse ignored her and waved toward a chair, "Go sit."

Bryn watched as she bustled around the room and couldn't quite fight the panic that swelled in her chest, something weird was going on. The room itself looked normal, boring butter cream colored the walls, stock photos and cheap carpet.

Then a thought struck her, Creep never came out of the room. Matter of fact, no one had come out of this room. Her eyes trailed the walls, locating a door on the opposite side from where she came in. _Some_ of the hysteria died down.

The nurse plopped down heavily on the chair sitting off to the side and grabbed Bryn's arm, settling her elbow on the arm rest and her wrist to the ceiling. Bryn stopped breathing when she swiped the inside of her elbow with disinfectant.

She snatched her arm away when the nurse began to wrap that stupid rubber band thing around her arm, "The hell are you doing? This is supposed to be a flu shot."

The nurse smiled at her condescendingly, "When's the last time you've had a flu shot?"

Bryn bristled, "Not long enough ago to have forgotten how they're usually given."

"Dear, it's an intravenous vaccine," she explained slowly, the smile on her lips stretched thin, "therefore I need a vein to put it in."

It didn't make her relax because the whole situation felt _wrong_ and had the fine hairs on the back of her neck standing on end. She eyed the nurse a while longer before sighing, "Fine." She threw her arm back onto the rest and looked away as the rubber circled her arm and closed tight against it.

She balled up her hand involuntarily, insides flopping around like fish, and tensed as the woman leaned away for a moment before righting herself. The nurse smacked her arm lightly and then a sharp flare of pain pierced her.

Bryn gasped and whipped her head back around, just in time to see the last remnants of the liquid in the vial being pushed into her vein, a dark blue that made her arteries look black as it spread, and to see the scary gauged needle pulling out of arm, "What the hell was that?"

"Flu vaccine, dear," she answered innocently, eyes wide and smile light.

It was nearly instantaneous – the searing that ran up her arm and into her chest, locking her lungs up so forcefully and completely. She slumped heavily in the chair and panted, trying to suck in air. As her vision began spotting and fuzzing, a man had appeared in front of her, murmuring to the nurse.

He was watching her closely, dark eyes flicking over her – assessing her, and in a flash his hand shot out, fingers hard and bruising against the pulse point on her neck.

"Just like the others." He didn't sound disappointed, just resigned as he dropped his hand to his pocket to pull out a cellphone.

The nurse cocked her head to the side and tapped her chin, "I thought for sure she'd be different."

The man's furious typing ceased as he arched a brow at the woman and huffed an annoyed breath, "Apparently not. Put her with the others," he turned back to Bryn and narrowed his eyes, "Wrap this up, now."

/

_Present Day…_

The punching bag, designed and reinforced specifically for Captain America like strength and endurance, flew towards the wall, bleeding sand as it went.

It landed heavily and the fabric ripped the length of the bag.

Steve breathed hard through his nose and wiped away the beads of sweat rolling into his eyes absentmindedly. That was the third one. Steve snorted. So much for Tony's R&D supposedly having made an indestructible bag.

He toed the spilt sand and sighed. His mind was anything but settled, which is what the monotonous punching was for, and he couldn't help as it drifted back towards the conversation he'd had previously;

"_You've at least sent out a bulletin, haven't you?" _

_Tony continued to fiddle with the code in front of him, "Never occurred to me."_

_Steve's mouth thinned and Stark could feel the disapproving scowl on the other man's face burning holes into his skull, "Tony -," he began but Stark turned lazily in his chair and gave Steve a withering glare._

"_Sarcasm," he replied with a despairing huff, "Is completely lost on you." He rubbed his tired, bloodshot eyes, "Look, I sent it out when we first got wind of what was happening," then he turned back to working on his project, "Isn't my fault that some of the idiots refused to listen."_

_Steve's fists tightened around his arms, "What are we looking for?"_

_Tony's head dropped and he glared at Steve from the corner of his eye. He watched as Stark worked through his irritated exasperation, his eyes running over the code once more, "I suppose you couldn't attach yourself to someone else for a while, could you," Tony sighed and kicked at the ground to spin himself towards Steve again. He pointed a stylus with one hand while the other rested on his bouncing leg, "We've been scanning for anything unusual."_

_When he didn't elaborate, Steve raised a brow and Tony rolled his eyes again, "Look, we're looking for anomalies. Hydra's good at hiding and since that last attack in Arkansas, they've went underground," Tony spun the stylus between his fingers, "Why can't you go bug Coulson, I'm sure he'd love for you to sign," he trailed off before waving his hands, "eh, something."_

_Steve stood there for a moment and Stark eyed him with barely constrained agitation, "Did you not hear me? Shoo, vamoose," Tony demanded, waving him off towards the other side of the room where Coulson and his team were talking amongst themselves._

_Steve gritted his teeth and turned on his heel, still unused to how flippant Tony could be – how badly the man still got under his skin. _

He recalled that the room was quiet, people staring at screens unblinkingly and found himself feeling awfully out of place.

Natasha and Clint had both been silently staring at each other, a flick of Clint's fingers as he twirled a bullet between them had been the only movements aside from breathing and blinking that Steve had been able to catch from the two.

Thor was oddly subdued, though his partner in crime was currently being stared down by Natasha, it still had made Steve uneasy. The demi-god was _never _still and was _always_ doing something. Though at that moment he seemed completely content to idly finger the leather loop on Mjolnir and gaze out the window with his crystal-bright eyes.

Banner had been quietly working in a corner, a hand on his hip and the other flying over the screen he was staring at. Every once in a while he'd rub his neck or push his glasses up his nose or he would run a hand through his messy mop and sigh.

Steve had left shortly afterwards because there wasn't _anything_ he could do or contribute.

He sighed, shaking his head and walked back over to the supply room to grab another punching bag. As he slung the glorified sack of sand over his shoulder, Natasha called him.

"Yea?" He replied as he rounded into the gym.

Her brow arched, looking pointedly at the bag over his shoulder and Steve just shrugged, "Tony needs to go back to the drawing board."

"I can see that," she said, observing the pile of sand and split fabrics in the corner.

"What did you need?" He asked as he hung the bag, hands falling to the sides to steady it.

Natasha walked up behind it and held the bag. Steve merely looked at her, "You sure?"

She rolled her eyes, "Just try not to send me flying across the room."

Steve grinned, "Yes, ma'am."

Natasha waited until Steve fell into a rhythm, her body straining against each hit, before she talked again, "Coulson and his team just flew out."

Steve's body halted its motions and his face that had been tight in concentration, morphed into the Captains as he looked up, "Did they find something?"

Natasha's muscles relaxed and she stepped around the bag, "It isn't much of a lead," she sighed, "Banner is still trying to coax some facilities up north to let him use their spectrometers."

Steve's brows shot up, "Gamma radiation?"

She nodded, "Some of the autopsies showed high levels of it. Some didn't, but he's hoping he can find trace signatures from where they might have manufactured it."

He nodded, frustration welling up in him, "What about that last college they hit? Can't you get some information out of them?"

"If you're talking about the college itself, we've already gotten everything we could from them," she answered, "If you're talking autopsies, we can't."

Steve's brows shot up again, "Why not?"

Natasha fisted a hand on her hip, "Because they just vanished. It doesn't follow the one pattern that Hydra had," she ruffled her hair, a sign of agitation – one of her only tells that Steve had learned from his time spent with her, "They were dumping the dead at the morgue before vanishing, but this time, nothing."

"What do you suppose that means?"

Natasha, her eyes hovering just above his shoulder, glanced up at Steve and a sense of dread pooled in his stomach, "It means they succeeded."


End file.
